Andrew's ramblings

ColdFusion Builder its pros and cons upon final version

Tags: General, Coldfusion

I would dare say that the product will be release sometime around June 2010, we all know that the last public release was Beta 3. And as it hasn't reached a Release candidate as yet, it would be safe to say that it is about 4+ months away from a release.

But what will its pros and cons be upon release?

Well lets talk about the competition first, which is the likes of Dreamweaver, CFEclipse, and any other editor that can edit files like notepad on windows, or even vi on Unix.

Aside from CFEclipse you will get colour coding, code insight. But the best thing that will come is the fact that you can connect to a ColdFusion server and run extensions that can extend ColdFusion Builder past what you might be used too.

You also get the ability to start/stop the server from within the IDE and this can be a god send to those who are using ColdFusion 9, and a pain in the butt at times if you are using anything under that version.

Although it needs some work at this stage, the fact that you can generate ORM entities from the IDE from an existing database is nice, and could save you a bit of work. But as it stands one modifies more than it generates. This is not a big deal as some might think, as you could rewrite these extensions to do what you need or want.

But what are some of the other benefits that are available to us, well the answer is what ColdFusion Builder is built upon. Even though it is built upon Aptana, it is basically built on top of Eclipse. Eclipse offers more to a developer than anything that Dreamweaver, Vi and or Notepad could ever deliver.

This means integration into version control systems, Jira or other bug tracking software. Which can be worth more than the cost of what ColdFusion builder might be.

But what are the cons to using it?

Well the cons are based upon my continued use of this product, and what I believe will be in the final release, which is based on the public bug tracker and response from Adobe themselves. And personally if I was to be buying the product the number one thing I would be looking at is the amount of time I have to deliver an informed decision, past that I would be looking at the stability of the product and how it delivers what I am looking for from an IDE.

The cons at this stage are based on what I am hearing, but it is interesting to note that no matter what platform you are on the number one thing is at this point in time, is that you are forced to download a product. When you have downloaded it you are forced to first uninstall this product, then reinstall it.

So why is that important?

It becomes important because outside of Adobe is a world of plug-in, and each time you download the product and wish to install it as standalone, you are forced to reinstall all plug-in's. I see this as a major problem to those who are serious about the development process that they get into. Remember I did say standalone, ColdFusion builder can be installed as a plug-in, but you need to uninstall it then reinstall that plug-in. This is not something that is comfortable with me.

And why is that?

Because I am used to taking an install of Eclipse on my portable and running it no matter where I am, this is achievable with CFB but if you try to uninstall it where it was not installed it will not be removed or uninstalled.

This becomes a problem because Adobe do not use the update/install/uninstall feature that is apart of Eclipse. Instead they choose to force you to install standalone/plugin into one location which defeats the purpose of having Eclipse. Let's say that I have a working example of my configuration, and a new version is release of eclipse or ColdFusion Builder?

Under normal circumstances I could just duplicate the directory, and try to update the features until I am happy. But ColdFusion Builder will see it as being already installed. Why is that?

But ColdFusion builder installs in either standalone, or plug-in into a directory it can uninstall. Which means if you move it to another directory, as you can with Eclipse you are in very serious trouble. Or even try to install more than one plug-in you are in as much trouble.

Adobe never gave this in serious thought, all they are interested in is one location install, one location uninstall. So if you are used to Eclipse and how it works, ColdFusion Builder will cause more trouble than it is worth.

So what other cons are there with CFB?

The other thing that Adobe have chosen to do is rely on Aptana as their choice of underlying IDE on top of Eclipse, this can cause more trouble than it is worth. And the number one problem with this is the editing and syntax highlighting of the code. As it stands Aptana has the worst IDE known to man. Adobe must know this as it has struggled to even get anything reasonable with CFB or even Flash Builder.

So at the end of the day the editor that ColdFusion Builder will use, will be the worst editor as far as syntax highlighting and other features goes. This is a decision Adobe will have to live with, but it will be decision that a lot of CFEclipse users might ever tolerate! Adobe are banking on the fact that the other features of the IDE will out way the problems with the actual editor.

Me, I would be saying I would prefer to use other editors because it is faster. No matter what features CFB has is not going to persuade me and maybe others to move over to it. That might be a small or large percentage, but either way Adobe is tied to Aptana, which has the worst way of editing that I and others I know have ever experienced.

But what else is a con to using this editor?

Adobe are not aware or of they are they do not care as to what most users might install, and another feature is MyLyn if you install the standalone version of ColdFusion builder you will never be able to use the best feature of this Add in, or plug-in to Eclipse based Editors. But if you install ColdFusion Builder as a plug-in then you can use it to its fullest. And Adobe don't care, they have slated this bug which has been in their hands for almost 12 months, have decide it is to important enough to be a version 1.0 standalone release.

The other thing that is a huge con which will not be in the version 1.0 release is the outline feature, in version 1.0 Adobe will release ColdFusion builder with a separate view for this. There are two problems with this, and the first is that if you open a large file it is fully expanded, which means you have to collapse then open to get where you want to go. The second problem with this is that it should not have separate view, and should be part of the navigation view and just drill into what you need or want.

At the end of this, one has to make a serious decision on what is best for them. But if you are a serious programmer, and not someone coming from a design background ColdFusion Builder will give your more headaches than it is worth to buy.

The choice will be on how this product is released, and how much they charge and if it was me I would not be purchasing version one of this product.